Here is an update on several issues central Tesla bear premise:
1) The Model S has enjoyed a competitive market segment of 1 and the Model 3 will face stiff competition from much better and well established automakers.
Chevy Bolt - poor aerodynamics, unclear L3 charging situation, GM disinterested in establishing L3 charging ahead of others
Nissan Leaf - 30 kWh refresh not doing well, lizard battery w/o liquid thermal management is doing poorly in both heat with degradation and range in the cold, and no signs of the follow on model being competitive other than price. Nissan showed an impractical IDS concept with a 60 kWh battery with still no liquid thermal management, is physically larger than the existing Leaf pack, and only showed 100 kW charging (which actually means 65-80 kW real world).
Hyundai Ioniq - BEV model with 28 kWh, 117 hp, very disappointing
Kia - same issues with Hyundai, sells primarily compliance levels of BEVs, cooperates with Hyundai on platform development.
Audi Q6 e-tron, or maybe Q7, or maybe something else, or maybe just more press releases - 4 seater SUV, up to 370 kW, expect to use up to 37 Ah cells. They've picked a manufacturing site for this vehicle which is based on their MLB platform and has an impressive 0.25 Cd, but that's worse than the Model X. Audi talks about ~95 kWh, but at their specific energy level is worse than Tesla's 2012 cells, so that's a very heavy pack. Worse aerodynamics than a Model X, fewer seats, lower performance, likely heavier due to poorer specific energy cells, unclear L3 DC charging situation, and due to arrive sometime in 2018.
Volkswagen - same limitations with Audi of course - looking at various concepts, limited to the same modular battery pack setup with lower specific energy, problems with L3 charging network and so forth. They've shown concepts like the BUDD-e that won't make it to production in that form, but the underlying MEB platform is what they will ship at some point. Targeting 500 km of range, but that's almost definitely NEDC range so we're really talking about 200-220 miles of range. At least they recognize that the MQB platform that underpins the e-Golf are really not suitable for long range BEVs, as it forces severe compromises since that platform tries to deal with multiple powertrains and is quite sub-optimal for a BEV. So a e-Golf will likely ship sometime in 2018 with poor specs that won't really compete well against the Bolt or the Model 3. But the MEB platform might ship in 2020 that still might not quite compete against a Model 3. Maybe Phaeton BEV based on this platform, maybe not. Here's a quote from MotorTrend:
A few months ago, we reported that the new Phaeton was all ready for production before the automaker decided to make changes. - MotorTrend, Oct 2015
Porsche - Mission-E is a hope on a prayer, as they showed specs that they don't actually have to tech yet. Buy hey, will we even remember by 2019 or 2020 what they originally showed in the concept? It is a concept after all whose primary purpose for unveiling in 2015 is FUD towards Tesla. But by 2020, maybe they can ship this car with lower range and slower than a Model S in 2015. Undoubtedly it would be expensive. Very expensive. But hey, it's been green lighted, or at least something has been green lighted. Bentley likely using whatever Porsche is cooking up, but that's relatively irrelevant.
Ford - who knows? Piggy backing on GM/LG again.
BMW - dorking around with PHEVs, i3 likely to get crushed this year and get a small battery capacity bump like the Leaf to 110-115 miles of range for 2017. Lots of rumors of an i5 or i6, but the latest rumors are for 2020.
No one else has tangible efforts beyond compromised PHEVs, which will have to serve them until battery tech gets to a point where they feel comfortable pushing BEVs. Given the long lead times and the steady, slow pace of battery tech developments, we're likely to see an environment where the Tesla products are clearly above other people's BEVs. And due the competitive advantages of BEVs over PHEVs, it is unlikely any PHEV would challenge Tesla's products in their core strengths.
2) Tesla will run out of money to build the Gigafactory
The Gigafactory, pilot phase, is likely to cost Tesla a little more than the 1/5 the total estimated cost of $2 billion. That's around $450-500 million. Panasonic spends the rest to get that phase up and running and they've committed the capex to do so. Tesla has spent $317 million thus far, so that's about $133-183 million, well within Tesla's available cash even without the ABL. The pilot phase alone roughly matches LG's total capacity for all automakers in 2017/2018. It roughly doubles Tesla's cell capacity. Therefore, the Gigafactory capex spend is not an issue for Model 3 launch. Certainly we don't know the timing of the additional phases and we haven't seen external work proceed on phase 2.
3) After the Q4 high deliveries number, Tesla will collapse.
Well, the only true measure of demand we have, which is very imperfect, is the customer deposits. Tesla exited Q4 '15 with $283.4 million, which is higher QoQ of $269.5 million and higher YoY of $257 million. Clearly not all that many people, in aggregate, cancelled their Model X deposits nor did Model S demand drop off dramatically.
I'm not sure how to state how impressive it is to have customer deposits increase in that fashion after a record setting delivery quarter.
I gotta run, this post is big enough already and I didn't even get to the cash burn stuff. Later...
